Format-Oriented Regional Development as a Strategy for Proactive Transformation in the Rhenish Mining Area

Abstract Proactive state-led transformations of post-industrial regions have a significant tradition in Germany. The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone hosted the International Building Exhibition (Internationale Bauausstellung – IBA) Emscher Park regional format in the Ruhr mining region between 1989 and 1999. Since then, it has implemented a format-oriented REGIONALE programme that is still ongoing. Nevertheless, the current transformation of the Rhenish Mining Area (RMA) poses its own challenges: Not only the massive landscape transformation of the opencast mining areas but also the formulation and negotiation of corresponding development goals remain a largely untested approach to regional development. There is also the organisation and maintenance of sustainable governance structures in a plethora of sub-regional approaches, interdependencies and time perspectives. The planned launch of the International Building and Technology Exhibition (Internationale Bau- und Technologieausstellung – IBTA) in the RMA, like that of the IBA Emscher Park, is aimed at bridging these challenges and thus creating significant potential for format-oriented regional development. This article highlights essential temporal-spatial dependencies and conflicts in regional structural change as a characteristic of the RMA. Further, it discusses the advantages and limitations of format-oriented regional development carried out by the IBTA as a means of synchronisation of timely and spatially disconnected intraregional developments.